This psalm may well have been
composed at the time when David was specially impressed with the wickedness of
men, when he felt the oppression of persecution, or experienced the dangers of
rebellion. He saw the great and apparently universal depravity of men, against
which there is only one remedy, namely, the salvation of the Lord, whose
delivering power is able to lift even the most besotted sinner to the plane of
redemption. To the chief musician, a psalm of David. V. 1. The fool, the
spiritually worthless, the madman in things pertaining to his soul's salvation, hath
said in his heart, it is his steady secret thought and delusion, There is
no God. A person who denies the existence of God is truly foolish, filled
with madness; he denies the evidences of his own senses, he deliberately
silences the voice of his own conscience. They, all those who give way to
foolishness in this manner, are corrupt, they have done abominable works, the
idea of badness being emphasized by the whole structure of the text. There is
none that doeth good, the inherited wickedness of the human heart is
intensified in the case of those who deliberately give way to godlessness. V.
2. The Lord looked down from heaven, bowing forward for the purpose of
examining very closely, upon the children of men, to see if there were any
that did understand, if any of the sons of Adam, any member of the human
race, had an insight into divine things, and seek God, acknowledging Him
and His fellowship as the highest good. The result of this careful examination
is now stated. V. 3. They are all gone aside, turning away from the path
of righteousness and holiness which the divine will has set forth for them to
walk, they are all together become filthy, tainted, filled with
corruption, so that their stench rises to the nostrils of God; there is none
that doeth good, no, not one, the universality of human depravity being
stated in the most emphatic terms. But this corruption shows itself most
strongly in the children of wickedness, as the question of the psalmist shows. V.
4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Are they so utterly
stupid, devoid of all sense? Has the judgment upon them so stultified their
minds that they believe their hypocrisy undiscovered by God? Who eat up my
people as they eat bread, not only supporting themselves by devouring the
substance of the godly, but also considering their oppression of the righteous
altogether self-evident and justified, and call not upon the Lord. They
are not in prayerful communion with Jehovah, hence they act like beasts of prey.
V. 5. There were they in great fear, namely, at the time when the thunder
of Jehovah's wrath hurls them down, they cringe and cower in terror when His
judgment approaches; for God is in the generation of the righteous, He
protects and governs His children and brings about their complete victory over
their enemies. The attitude of the unbelievers at such a time is the same as
that of the Egyptians when the Lord troubled them, Ex. 14, 24. 25. V. 6. Ye
have shamed the counsel of the poor, the wicked may do so, but in vain, the
Lord cries out to them through the poet, because the Lord is his Refuge,
Jehovah is his Stronghold, his Defense and Protection. But in view of these
conditions the psalmist is constrained to call to the Lord for deliverance. V.
7. Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! Mount Zion, the
place where the Ark of the Covenant had found its resting-place, was the place
of the presence of God in the midst of His people. It was here that David looked
for deliverance upon his poor people, the true believers, suffering under the
oppression of the wicked. When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of His
people, delivering them from the oppression of this great evil which was now
besetting them, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad, these two
names, Jacob and Israel, being designations of the Church of God, not only in
the Old Testament, but at all times. It is, in reality; a Messianic call: Oh,
that Jehovah, from His throne in Zion, would grant salvation to His people by
revisiting them in their captive, forsaken state, by sending the Messiah to
bring them deliverance, thus giving occasion of the greatest rejoicing to the
Church of all times! This was fulfilled when the Son of God became man and
delivered all mankind from the oppression of all enemies; then it was that
salvation of the right kind came upon Israel.